Hunting for a Chance
by meruhen
Summary: A prince goes searching for something unexpected. A darker take on the Sleeping Beauty tale.


She wears her nudity like a cloak: her skin is the soft silk, her limbs long and flowing

She wears her nudity like a cloak: her skin is the soft silk, her limbs long and flowing. She could enter a room like she is now and put to shame the rest of the women draped in their jewels and ornate clothes. That is what the knight who wishes to be a prince thinks, as he looks at her figure illuminated in the moon.

The knight who wishes to be a prince has a name that is pleasant and noble and does not fit him at all, so he thinks, and he refuses to go by it. The woman calls him her dark horse, with a secretive smile that he does not know the meaning of. He never asks.

He lounges in the room at the top of the door, limbs lean and long and muscles bulging but not unattractively, but the woman pays no attention to him. She is busy studying the sky for something. He doesn't know and he doesn't care.

The knight thinks he is so smart. He's the second child in a family of three, for three is the perfect number, and the man who provided seed for him had demanded three children of his fragile wife, not caring it would kill the woman. And his older brother is strong and silent and stoic and will lead an army in his future. His younger brother is kind and nice and fairly stupid, so the knight thinks, but is going to rule their father's country when the man is dead.

He is the one stuck without something.

It was being without a place in the world that led him to the castle he is in now, and the woman who stands in front of the window, with nothing to shield her from the night. He went out to seek his fortune and found a witch, who did not so much need to seduce him with her body as tell him she could find him a world.

She is waiting to tell him when to go seek his world; he already knows where to go and how to find what he desires, for she has told him before this. He knows the end of this story: he will leave, but he will come back to this castle, and her lands, with a princess behind him and the princess's lands in his hands.

And he'll conquer the witch with his might and free himself from his princess and make this dark witch his new queen. He shall have wealth and riches and a powerful woman to do his bidding, and the same powerful woman to watch over him and his. He doesn't think the story will end in any other way.

--

The clock strikes midnight and the raven caws. The witch at the window turns and he can see the hint of a rose nipple among the dark strands of her hair, and it sends him lusting after her, just has the shadow at the juncture of her thighs has him imaging things that will come to pass.

"You must go now," she tells him in tones that do not leave room for argument. At her feet, a cat sits, staring at him with unblinking eyes. He's unnerved, but refuses to back down.

"Why do I actually have to go out and conquer something?" he demands, rising to his feet and striding over to her. "You have a land and castles, grant me them."

She does not blink or flinch or draw back at his words, but stares at him impassively. The minute draws on, and he stares back at her, eyes cold as the sapphires that grace her hand.

"My castle is only for the one who comes back," she tells him. Her hand, pale and impossibly slim and elegant, with long fingernails that can sink into flesh with only a touch, comes out to touch his cheek and he is amazed at how cold it is. She smiles at him and he does not see the intent lurking in her eyes. "Bring me the flag of the country you gain, the glove of the princess."

He sulks and sighs and stares at her more; he thinks it is a glare he is sending her and a sound of anger. He does not see the petulant child that lurks beneath his skin. And when she says nothing still, he storms off.

The door slams behind him and outside the darkened tower, the moon disappears behind a cloud.

--

The night is dark, and the day dawns not beautifully, but with a sad grandeur that makes him wish he was at home still. Or in the witch's castle, which was maybe not as good as his father's, but he was still the only male.

It is raining on him by the time he reaches the border of the witch's lands, in the late evening. There are no trees that offer cover, because the winds whip the rains beneath the branches and settling down for the night would mean waking up soaked. He cares enough for his health to not do such a thing.

It is nearing midnight, making it a full day since he left the witch's castle, when he spots the crone the witch mentioned. He pulls his horse up in front of her, tall and proud and haughty high above her.

"Old woman, tell me where I can find shelter and the one who will lead me to the princess," he demands.

"What will you give in return?" she asks, and looks up at him with eyes that know too much. But he does not see it, for he sees nothing of import.

"I will spare your life."

"Foolish boy, I can leave now and not endanger my life. Tell me, what will you give in return."

The knight pulls from his purse a handful of golden coins, showing them to her, for this is what the witch told him to do. And he will give them to her, or so the witch ordered him, but when he is looking down at her, he changes his mind.

"Tell me, and these will be yours."

The crone stares at them, then the knight, and she knows what he thinks, but still goes on to tell him.

"There is shelter a mile down the road. You will be welcomed there. And the princess lies in a journey two days from here, in a castle surrounded by thickets, in the highest tower."

"Thank you, old lady," he says and draws back his hand with the golden coins. Using his other hand, he draws his sword and slays her, dismounts to clean his sword on her rags that were clothes. Her head sits on the ground at his feet, eyes still open and staring, and when he remounts, he spits on it. He doesn't see the eyes blink.

--

The inn welcomes him; he is the only traveller out these days, they tell him and business is hard. He acts haughty and royal, like he is, and demands the best of everything they have, and they provide with good cheer, the woman smiling and polite, the man sharing stories with him, jovial and with good humor. They don't even blink when he demands their daughter and mounts her in the parlor, in front of the woman and the man, and with her virgin blood still staining her, lets him drag her to his room, where he uses her body over and over again that night. It has been a long time since he has been able to spend himself in a woman, for the witch made her girls off limits to him. The knight had gone along with this, thinking then that the witch wanted him only to herself. But that thought hadn't been able to hold his hunger.

The daughter is nearly dead when he bathes the next morning, ordering the good wife to wash him, and then brutally rapes the woman next to her daughter's body. He watches the light in her eyes fade, and knows he has done something. Something good, he thinks, because they all said life was hard. There is no better way to go than with the touch of a prince.

The man greets him with tears and demands repayment, for his wife and his daughter and for staying the night in the inn, and the prince doesn't listen. He runs the man over with his horse instead, and leaves behind the inn.

It is a long two days journey, raining the entire time, and he does not encounter anymore inns. In the hour before he reaches the castle, in the time where the woods start threatening on the land and the shadow of something looms over him, he spots another woman, dressed in the clothing of a simple maid, who stares at him with eyes that burn deep. But he doesn't see her eyes, for he never sees. He notices her and has already dismounted before he realizes his intentions.

Her bodice rips easily in his hands, but then she cries out and he listens for once.

"I can help you reach the castle," she says, pushing at his hands. "You have to traverse the thickets and there is a path only I know of that can make the going easier. Just don't rape me."

"Fine. But cross me and you shall die," he tells her and puts her on the horse, mounting as well.

--

Finding the castle is easy, and the maid does not lead him false, but finds for him a path through the thickets, big enough for only person to walk. She tries to escape, but he forces her to walk first, to make sure it will lead to the castle. His shoulders are scraped by the spines of the thicket, and by the time they reach the castle, the arms of his shirt is in tatters and he is bleeding.

"Do you know how to get to the tower?" he asks the maid, wiping the blood from his arms.

"Yes. But that was not part of the agreement."

"Take me there and I will let you live."

She opens her mouth to object, but shakes her head and remains silent, turning to lead him to the tower. She is trembling and hesitant, but he does not notice. He notices nothing.

When they reach the bottom of the tower, he pulls her to him and pins her to the wall and takes her as he promised he would not. The witch, he thinks, had told him something about this, but he has since forgotten it and does not care. He will do things as he wishes.

He leaves the girl on the floor, broken and bruised and battered.

--

The princess wakes when he presses his lips to hers, and the thickets disappear, but the castle does not awaken, and he assumes the castle and the country is his to take. He does not touch his princess, for she is something to be respected, and he is waiting for the witch now, but demands to know where the flag is, that once rode the winds above the tower. When she hands it to him, seemingly pulling it from thin air, but really just plucking it from the bed, for it had been her pillow, and the knight who is now, or soon to be, a prince, drags her from the tower.

The witch wants her glove and a flag. She will get the princess and the flag, and the princess, he thinks, will make a good servant for the witch, once she is his queen.

The trip to the witch's castle is shorter than the one coming. It does not surprise him, even though the weather is still bad. He thinks the witch knows he has completed his task and is coming back to her. She'll greet him with open arms and they shall celebrate long into the night.

The knight drags the princess with him, but refrains from touching her at all, for her cool beauty is not to his liking. He does not pay attention to her, does not even provide food for her, and when he does remember her, thinks she should be weakening. Anyone who slept a century would be weak. He doesn't notice that she is rosy with life and survives on air and dew, like a fairy, and each touch of her hand or foot causes flowers to spring in her wake.

--

"You killed my sisters," the witch tells him, when he arrives in her tower. The princess is at the foot of the tower, left there by him, for he expects something much different than what he is getting.

"I do not know what you mean," he tells the witch, setting the flag at her feet. She is still draped in nothing and he does not attempt to hide his lust, reaching for the heavy globes of her breasts.

Her hand slaps his away, leaving a stinging mark.

"The crone, the girl at the inn, the woman, the maid, you killed them."

"They deserved to die."

"For providing answers, for giving you shelter, for leading you right and true? They deserved to be violated and killed?"

"I did not violate the crone."

"Spitting on her flesh is as much a violation as any you dared to commit."

The door swings open behind him and his princess enters. He turns to look at the golden girl, then back to the witch.

"The only one of importance, I did not touch."

The witch bows her head at that, and offers him a cold smile. "And for not touching my daughter, you shall not die right away. You shall face the same curse my princess was under, but never shall you wake from it."

His eyes are widening in horror as she speaks, and he drops to his knees when the princess walks around him and falls to her knees in front of the witch, wrapping her arms around the witch's waist and burying her head in the woman's stomach. Her voice is the last he hears, and the last sight he sees is the castle he had just rescued her from, except he is now the one in the bed.

"I have missed you, Mother."


End file.
